Meet the modern-day Kyle Larson of Australian Sprint Car racing.
Lachlan McHugh is now being exposed to American eyes, but the tear this racer went through during his latest season in Australia is one we’ve only seen in recent memory by a guy who runs the 57.
“This past season we won 20 features out of 31 races,” McHugh said on Tuesday. “It wasn’t bad.”
You read that right. McHugh raced 31 times over the Australian summer and only failed to win 11 of them.
During his first race in the United States, he even battled with Larson before a broken shock mount pushed him back to a fourth-place finish.
The run put McHugh on notice to Americans as he took the reigns of the Jim Muth No. 101 Maxim car to run throughout the summer.
“My crew chief at home knows the car owner and put it together for me,” McHugh said. “I was still racing at home. I just came over to do sort of a short schedule. I’ll go home after the Kings Royals.”
McHugh is running the same car that Kerry Madsen ran earlier in the season during the DIRTCar Nationals at Volusia.
At the time, McHugh was still racing during the back end of the year back home.
“It’s been fun so far,” McHugh said. “I’ve been enjoying it. We’ve had some okay results along the way, which makes it better.”
After his debut top-five finish at Attica, McHugh took on the World of Outlaws at Lawrenceburg, the ASCoC Ohio Speedweek, and is running the full Huset’s-to-Jackson Showdown week as well.
So far, his run in ‘the states’ has given him all he could ask for.
“It’s been good so far,” McHugh said. “I get to get a lot more racing done over here. I do like a full season in Australia and only get about 30 races in, where over here I can come for like a couple of months and get 30 races in. It’s sort of more seat time. That’s the reason I came over – to get more seat time and improve as a diver. It’s really just different than what I race back at home. It’s a lot dustier (in Ohio) but that was the goal getting over here – just experiencing new things.”
McHugh has bigger goals in mind down the road, but for now, he’s just searching for a top 3 finish in whatever race he wins.
He knows the level of competition that he is going up against.
“A win was probably not something I was realistically aiming for, but I think if we could get a podium – that would be something cool to take home,” McHugh said.
However, racing in the United States full-time is something that the Queensland driver is aiming to do.
He wants to go on tour full-time with one of the national series in the next few seasons.
“I think a few years down the track – that would probably be my goal, trying to do the full schedule with the World of Outlaws or the All Stars type of deal. We’ll just play it by ear and see where it takes me.”
Whatever happens, he’s already raised some eyebrows.
He’ll wait and see how things workout over the next couple of seasons, but for now, he’ll try to raise some more.
McHugh and the No. 101 will follow the World of Outlaws to Jackson and see how they can run from Thursday leading up to the $50,000-to-win feature on Saturday night.
